The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connector assemblies for high speed fiber optical and copper communications.
It is known to provide a metal cage with a plurality of ports, whereby transceiver modules are pluggable therein. Several pluggable module designs and standards have been introduced in which a pluggable module plugs into a receptacle which is electronically connected to a host circuit board. For example, a well-known type of transceiver developed by an industry consortium is known as a gigabit interface converter (GBIC) or serial optical converter (SOC) and provides an interface between a computer and a data communication network such as Ethernet or a fiber network. These standards offer a generally robust design which has been well received in industry.
It is desirable to increase the operating frequency of the network connections. Electrical connector systems that are used at increased operating speeds present a number of design problems, particularly in applications in which data transmission rates are high, e.g., in the range above 10 Gbps (Gigabits/second). One concern with such systems is reducing electromagnetic interference (EMI) emissions. Another concern is reducing operating temperatures of the transceivers.
In conventional designs, thermal cooling is achieved by using a heat sink and/or airflow over the shielding metal cage surrounding the receptacles. However, the thermal cooling provided by conventional designs is proving to be inadequate, particularly for the transceivers in the lower row of a stacked configuration.